Today we are highlighting some great guides for a few AP champions. Preseason is a great time to explore some new champions that you might want to bring with you on your journey to climb the ladder in the upcoming 2017 season, and these champions are all great options to try out.

We're three weeks into the preseason patch hit and as is tradition, a big number of changes have lead to a big shift to the meta and to popular champions.

Here at LolKing we are making sure we have updated guides for all the champions once Season 7 begins in December, but until then, we will be giving you some quick guides in case you want to pick up champions that are on the rise, at the top of their role or simply unconventional picks that work and are doing well currently!

Jungle

Hecarim

Hecarim was already starting to creep up in popularity and in terms of winrate before even 6.22 came around. He wasn’t strong enough to contend with Elise and Lee Sin in professional play but he was right behind them.

The preseason patches brought changes that only helped out Hecarim. He can clear the jungle just fine as he’s fast and has a healthy clear. Problematic camps such as the Raptors or the Krugs aren’t any issue for him as he powers through camps. His ganks aren’t the best but if he gets a good angle with Devastating Charge, chances are you will at the very least force a flash.

The other big change was the introduction of Courage of the Colossus (this is getting rather old isn’t it). Hecarim is the kind of champion that wants to engage and go into the middle of multiple opponents but before late game and only Trinity Force and Cinderhulk to his name, he would blow up extremely fast. With Courage of the Colossus he gets to go in and cause a ton of damage and disruption without dying immediately.

Mid Lane

Ahri

Ahri slowly started creeping up as one of the top winrates in late season 6 and she’s still at the top with preseason changes coming in. Not much has changed for her in terms of her setup. If anything, the Abyssal Scepter changes were a nerf to those who rush the item (like Ahri does in tougher matchups), so why is she still so strong?

Firstly, it’s important to mention the minion changes. In patch 6.22 ranged minions were made weaker, and now Ahri can actually kill the backline of each wave with an Orb of Deception after a few levels, making her lane pressure and thus, roaming, much better.

Secondly, most of her bad matchups are either not popular in the current (champions who outrange her such as Corki, Xerath, Kog’maw) or got nerfed recently (Aurelion Sol). This leaves her with a lot of room to breathe and play out most lanes rather safely.

Aside from that, Ahri is the best you can ask for as a jack of all trades, half mage half assassin, the Nine-Tailed Fox is extremely strong at setting up pick-offs with Charm, but is also strong in teamfights given her wide array of AoE damage tools.

AD Carry

Twitch

With Preseason, the AD Carry role was probably the role that shifted the most, aside from top lane. Big nerfs to fervor and the changes from armor penetration to lethality killed off a lot of lane bullies that were extremely strong in patch 6.21 such as Jhin, Miss Fortune and Lucian were pushed away from dominance.

Warlord’s Bloodlust became the standard keystone choice for most and what better opportunity for Twitch to show up once again. The Plague Rat is known for being a weak laner that hits a strong power spike in the mid game and just takes over the game from there, so guaranteeing he gets through lane is extremely important. The keystone changes alongside a very passive support meta with Janna and Nami being amongst the most popular picks allow him to do exactly this.

From there, Twitch is unique in the sense that he can use ambush to roam and set up ganks in the mid lane. If he ever catches the enemy carry alone in a side wave, it’s likely that he’ll spray them to death popping out unannounced.

Season 7 begins in less than a week and a big number of changes have lead to a big shift to the meta and to popular champions.

Here at LolKing we are making sure we have updated guides for all the champions once the season begins, but until then, we will be giving you some quick guides in case you want to pick up champions that are on the rise, at the top of their role or simply unconventional picks that work and are doing well currently!

Mid Lane

Kog'maw

AP Kog'maw is one of those old school picks that we would often see come out from Froggen and other mid laners back in season 2. With Kog'maw's rework, the pick disappeared, but ever since his rework was essentially reverted on 6.19 he has been showing up occasionally. Currently as a mid laner he's one of the highest winrates in the game, but is only played seldomly.

You might be asking yourself, why play Kog'maw with assassins jumping left and right? The answer is, you shouldn't for the most part.

One of the main reasons behind his low playrate is the fact that he can't be blind picked as there are many lanes that can shut him down. Instead, Kog'maw does best when he can be picked after seeing the enemy mid lane pick and when that mid lane pick is not an assassin or a burst mage that can take him down very fast.

If you're looking to play him, look for matchups versus other mages that you can outrange, such as Orianna, Viktor, Ryze, Cassiopeia and even those annoying Elementalist Lux players that are running rampant.

Kog'maw has insane poke with Living Artillery and surprising burst if he can combine Void Ooze with a quick Caustic Spittle and Living Artillery stike to proc Thunderlord's Decree and quickly dispatch a squishier target.

Support

Sion

If you have been paying any attention to win rates in the past few months you might have noticed that Sion Support is usually around the top win rates, despite having a rather low play rate. Sion is an off meta pick that is bound to catch your opponents off guard and surprise them with the amount of damage you have while still being tanky and not having access to much gold.

Sion Support is all about abusing the brushes to land that sneaky Decimating Smash onto an unsuspecting opponent. Roar of the Slayer can be used from afar against ranged matchups to slow down opponents and make it easier to follow up with your other crowd control and Soul Furnace is just a means of helping you win more trades as you negate incoming damage with the shield.

Preseason even made Sion Support stronger, giving him Courage of the Colossus as a keystone option. The new keystone allows him to be even more oppressive in trades. If he ever lands hard CC he will have two shields to make sure he can negate any incoming damage.

For the most part you should look to play Sion with long ranged AD Carries that can follow up easily after you go in, such as Jhin or Caitlyn. Try to avoid playing Sion into Soraka, Trundle or Alistar as these three champions have tools to instantly cancel your Devastating Strike.

Top Lane

Quinn

Top Lane is for the most part full of tanks right now, but the highest win rates in platinum and above show us that carries are still well and alive in this position. Kayle, Cassiopeia and Quinn are amongst top win rates currently.

Quinn is still an extremely frustrating lane bully to play against. Ranged top laners in general got a big buff as they can abuse Fresh Blood and Greenfather's Gift to constantly wittle their opponent down. Combine those two masteries with Quinn's Passive Harrier and she will be forcing enemies out of lane with ease.

But winning lane is only part of the game and you will need to translate that advantage to the other lanes. Luckily for Quinn, with behind enemy lines you can quickly zip to another lane after pushing it in and look for gank opportunities to help your other lanes get ahead.

There aren't any lanes that are really problematic for Quinn, but watch out for ganks, if you play too aggressively and far up you are bound to get ganked. Quinn is pretty easy to punish so careful management of waves and good ward coverage to evade the incoming jungler is key.

The new Ultimate Skin, Elementalist Lux released just a few days ago and our model viewer is now updated with an extra drop-down menu so you can check out all of her 10 forms! Her pick rate has gone up a tiny bit so if you're having trouble getting her in enough games to find your favorite variations this is a great alternative.

While we are super excited for this update, we are aware that some other models are broken. For example, my boy Karthus is being a bit retro and Bewitching Nidalee is a little too into the Halloween horror theme.

Some format changes and a rush of prep work for Season 7 have left us a bit behind on our beloved model viewer, but we are now focused on it and have fixes coming in the near future. We want to thank you all for your patience, and hope you enjoy checking out the ultimate skins!

When we first saw the preseason jungle changes there was a myriad of concerns from the removal of smite buffs, the addition of plants, and the overall layout of the jungle hurting some junglers like Warwick and Nidalee. These concerns have come to fruition to various degrees, but one sticking point in the jungle layout that has been undergoing changes is the camp of Krugs.

Initially on release the main concern was the amount of time it takes to clear the camp. The camp begins with an Ancient Krug and Krug. When killed the Ancient Krug splits into 2 Krugs, and then the 3 total Krugs will all split into 2 Lesser Krugs, and because there is an animation and delay on each split, this tongue twister of a clear took quite a while.

Rather than making the clear faster, Riot choose to increase the reward for killing the camp, specifically the EXP earned. People immediately noted that killing the Red Brambleback buff camp and Krugs immediately gave the jungler level 3 and positioned him for an early gank. Most people assumed this was an unintended over buff to the camp until a tweet by RiotFearless confirmed it as intentional:

Unsurprisingly this turned out to be an extremely strong mechanic for junglers. The dangers of an early gank became immense for whichever side of the map your Krugs camp was on. Let's take a look at a couple of examples of just how powerful these ganks could be, both against bot lane:

As well as top lane:

Even if you know the gank is coming, or potentially coming, the cost to playing appropriately passively just to mitigate its chances of success are pretty high and would be a current and future balance concern at the least. Luckily it didn't take very long for the full impact of the change to cause some quick backpedaling on the design:

We have changes in testing for Krugs start. Still higher than average XP and Gold on the camp, but will require scuttle or raptors to hit 3.

These tweets pretty much sum up what most of the community wanted out of the changes to Krugs, increase the rewards for the time spent doing them, but there seemed very little reason to introduce such a huge power spike into the equation when it just needed a firm nudge in the right direction.

While it was a questionable design choice, it's nice to see the quick reaction to implement and bring it back in line, especially while we are still in the preseason state where changes are more fluid and expected.